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Eleven
Declan
The daysafter my arrival at home, I slept a lot.
More than I’d like.
I moved from the sofa to the bed and back again, trudging like a zombie from one to another.
As I pulled my bestWalking Deadimpression, an impression that would usually impress only my bonsai tree unless Ma barged her way in with Da at her back blustering over how I made her worry, and a few of my brothers trickling in through the day to make sure I was on the mend, they were there.
Constantly.
Maybe it was stupid of me not to anticipate that, but it came as a severe shock.
What stunned the hell out of me even more?
That I liked it.
She made coffee in the morning.
I woke up, trudged into the living room, and there was a steaming cup there waiting for me.
She wasn’t there with the cup, which I’d have preferred, but her presence registered with me.
A little while later, Shay would wander in. He was quiet, not as talkative as I heard him be with his mom when they were in the kitchen together, but he stuck around. We watched cartoons and shit on the box, not really talking all that much until a live game came on and then we argued stats.
Throughout the day, when I wandered out to take a leak, I’d return to find a steaming cup there, a sandwich, and some healthy snacks.
It was such a ‘mom’ thing to do that it took me a while to recognize that she was mothering me, and the last thing I wanted from Aela O’Neill was to be mothered. Even if, right now, I fucking needed it.
Even my balls ached—and not in a way I was used to—and getting over the surgery, the health issues, as well as adapting to the many drugs I had to take…no bueno. Beside every steaming mug? A little dish with pills on it.
Definitely mothered.
Shay didn’t think anything of it, which told me he was lucky. It told me she doted on him, and I knew that because as a kid, my ma had doted on me. Sure, that had been offset with my father turning me into a career criminal before my pubes even fully grew out, but hell, from one spoiled kid to another, I got it.
What I also saw?
He appreciated her.
And that made me appreciate him even more.
He was a good kid. A solid one. Respectable.
Everything I wasn’t.
Sure, I could hide it right now. I did nothing but zombie walk across my apartment, moving from room to room as the hours of the day and my body required. But when I was back in full working order, things would change. They had to. They couldn’tnot.
I’d used my TV more in the past five days than I had in five years. My office was in whichever warehouse contained the gear I was trafficking, and my cell phone didn’t contain apps for fun, but for work.
Every hour of my life was focused on the job. On the family. On making us richer, shoring up our power. That came with blood, sweat, and tears. Preferably, some fucker else’s.
“You didn’t take your meds.”
I cut him a look, surprised he was talking to me. Not only because we were watching cartoons and not sports, but because he’d just woken up. It was twelve PM, he’d been awake twenty or so minutes, and I didn’t mind. I was just surprised Aela didn’t give him shit about it.
Ma had given us a lot of leeway, but it was either get up with the rooster or have her vacuuming outside our doors to wake us up.
